Summary

On June 1, 1838, Moses Graham petitioned for his freedom against Richard B. Alexander. Graham based his petition on the terms of the June 7, 1825 will of Elizabeth Brown which emancipated his mother Milly and "her children," though it did not specifically mention Moses. The Court interpreted the will to include Moses Graham and provided in a March 1840 decision by a jury trial that he should be emancipated at age thirty-one. Richard B. Alexander appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error, arguing that under its Act of 1792, chapter 103, section 36, Virginia law specified that emancipation could only be by will or deed, and presumably required the specific naming of the individual to be emancipated. Although Justice Roger B. Taney authorized the writ in January 1840, three years later in January 1843 the Supreme Court dismissed the writ of error, ordering Alexander to pay the costs. The lower court ruling stood and Moses Graham obtained his freedom at age thirty-one.